8
I still don’t believe it. I need someone else to corroborate Lydia’s account, and maybe even point out which Abbott brother Kennedy had gone to see.
I open Instagram again and DM another of Kennedy’s close cheer friends, Desiree Watts.
Hey, I’m really sorry about Kennedy. I’m hoping I can ask you some questions about what you think happened to her. I’m wondering if I should be concerned for my own safety. If you know something, can we talk?
As soon as I send it, I feel horrible; it’s a betrayal.
But in the end, I’m doing it for the triplets. For Henry, who asked me to help clear their names. I close the app and pray that none of the Abbott brothers ever find out I sent that message.
The whole drive back from Lydia’s house, I tried to think up some other reason Kennedy may’ve been on the Abbotts’ property the night Lydia followed her. I refused to believe it was drugs, since I’ve never seen the Abbotts with so much as a cigarette. But nothing else came to mind.
Now, I try in vain to picture any of the brothers having dated Kennedy in secret. Bram has always seemed too torn up over Mariana to move on, and Henry…well, I don’t think Henry was seeing Kennedy.
That leaves Adam, a boy who, since the accident, is merely a shell of his former outgoing-king-of-Silver-Creek-High self. A boy who practically has to be dragged to school by his brothers and, apart from that, never goes beyond the mansion walls.
Unless he actually has been going beyond the mansion walls.
* * *
Henry lets me inside, his brows furrowing when I tell him I need to talk to Adam.
“For the investigation,” I explain.
“It’s your funeral.” He points me to the backyard, which is more like botanic gardens than a yard, complete with a pond, a hedge maze, a white gazebo, and probably five hundred flower varietals.
I find Adam sitting cross-legged on the small arched bridge that overlooks the lily pad–strewn water. His head rests on his folded arms.
“Hey,” I say, to which his chin lifts almost imperceptibly.
“Henry isn’t out here,” he mumbles.
“I know that,” I say, trying not to sound as hurt as I feel about the state of our friendship.
I’ve never been as close to Adam as I am to Henry or Bram; still, I’ve always considered him a friend. I guess that’s changed over the past year. Adam pushed me away like he did everyone else who cared for him. “I came to see you. I tried yesterday too, but you ignored my text.”
He grumbles an inaudible response. As I round the path to step onto the bridge, he slips the hood of his gray sweatshirt over his head.
“You know you don’t have to do that.” I near him cautiously, like a child trying not to spook a lizard. He remains seated, making no move to pull back the hood or to look at me. “What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking,” he says.
“About Kennedy?”
He darts me a withering look and goes back to staring at the water.
But I can’t back down. People are going to keep talking about the Abbotts’ possible involvement in Kennedy’s murder regardless of how antisocial Adam behaves. Hell, Lydia apparently shared her secret boyfriend theory with the detectives. Time isn’t exactly on the brothers’ side.
“Lydia Costas is talking to the detectives, Adam. She’s claiming that Kennedy was seeing one of you.”
He scoffs. “Seeing one of us?”
“As in dating one of you. In secret.”
He chuckles, and then, before I know what’s happening, he pushes back the hood and thrusts his face closer to mine, teeth bared. “Look at me, Hayden,” he spits, causing me to flinch.
But I do what he asks, my eyes following the paths of scars over the right half of his face, shiny and pink. The missing eyebrow, his right eye in a constant squinted state, having sustained damage from the flames. It’s only a moment before he lifts his hand to shield that eye from the sun.
But the hand—that’s where the real damage lies.
I know that’s what bothers Adam more than his face.
His right hand, half of the equation when it came to receiving passes on the football field.
Now, with the grafted skin still in delicate condition and most of the feeling gone in his fingers, Adam can barely hold a pencil.
In fact, the doctors encouraged him to try to switch everything to his left.
He’s obstinate, so he keeps trying to use the right.
From what Henry has told me, though, these efforts always result in frustration and meltdowns.
“Adam.” I scoot closer to him, but he inches away again.
“You think any girl would want to be with me now that I look like this?”
“You want my honest answer?”
“Not really,” he says dismally, still shielding his eyes as he watches a bird pause on the railing before flitting down to the pond.
I pretend to evaluate him. “I think that yes, any girl would want to be with you. I think the main thing you lost in the accident was your confidence. But you’ll get it back.
You’re just as handsome as before, only with a slightly more…
rugged look. Which has been hot ever since the dawn of time.
” I cut him off before he can tell me to go to hell.
“But you’ve been hiding under that hood. ”
“It’s chilly out.”
I sigh. “You really won’t tell me about Kennedy?”
“I didn’t have a secret relationship with Kennedy Russo. I’d be happy if I never had to hear the name Russo again. The last thing I’d do is spend time with that girl.”
“Because of the school board campaign?” I guess it makes sense.
Dr. Russo’s word holds a lot of weight with the people in this town.
When he implied the brothers were dangerous, most of the parents turned against the boys.
Their children, the student population of Silver Springs High, soon followed.
“Something like that,” he says, running his fingers gently over the delicate flesh of his right hand. “Let’s just say that as sorry as I am that Kennedy died, I’m not sorry that man lost a daughter.”
I’m taken aback by his words. By the scorn and utter hatred in them. It isn’t like Adam at all. He’s used to people gossiping about him and his brothers. “You don’t mean that.”
His face is still hard when he says, “No, I guess not.”
“Adam, did something happen in that hospital room?” What made the doctor turn against him the way he did?
When he doesn’t respond, I add, “You can talk to me, anytime. Or…kick a soccer ball with me.” I know it’s not soccer he longs to play, but it’s all I can offer, considering his limitations.
He starts picking the white paint off the bridge beam in front of him, his lack of response a dismissal. Only I can’t help but push things. “What about your brothers?”
“What about them?” he snaps.
“Was one of them seeing Kennedy?”
He laughs, a scornful sound. “They’re your best friends. You say it all the time. But you’re asking me?”
My heart twists. I didn’t realize how careless I’d been in the past. How much it hurt Adam. “They’re your brothers, though. You guys share everything.”
“Not anymore. Not in a long time.” He pulls the hood back up, and I know he’s done talking.
I get up, watching him for another moment, trying to come up with something to say before leaving him there on the bridge.
On my way back through the gardens, my phone dings with an Instagram notification. It’s a DM from Desiree Watts. My nerves hum as I open it, but the adrenaline buzz is short-lived.
I’ve got nothing to say
A black haze hovers at the edge of my periphery.
Something like hopelessness threatening to push in.
Desiree has a reputation as a bit of a cold-hearted bitch.
But I thought after what happened to Kennedy, she might be in a more pliant, empathetic mood.
Even my bluff about fearing for my own safety didn’t tug on her heartstrings.
Everyone in school knows I’m friends with the Abbotts. Either Desiree is really as icy cold as her reputation, or she doesn’t believe the brothers truly pose any danger.
When I push the French doors shut behind me, Henry wanders into the room. “How did it go?” he asks, wincing with one eye shut.
“About how you’d expect. I never realized how much Adam hates Dr. Russo.”
Henry nods. “Guy’s a huge jerk.”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, is Bram home?”
“Where else would he be?” Henry’s face falls. “We’re pretty much confined here per our lawyer’s advice.”
Exactly what Henry and Bram feared. “Look, I hate to ask this,” I say, lowering my voice and peering over Henry’s shoulder at the doorway, “but you don’t know if he was seeing Kennedy, do you? The last few weeks, since the start of the school year?”
Henry’s eyes drop to his feet, and he starts to fiddle with the collar of his polo. “Like dating her?”
“Yeah.”
“Not that I know of,” he says with a headshake. “He’s still destroyed over Mariana.” His tone shifts to something like spite. “Why would you ask that?”
“Sorry, it—I knew there was nothing to it, but Lydia Costas said that Kennedy was seeing somebody and that she saw Kennedy sneak onto your property a few weeks ago.”
“Lydia said that?”
“I told her I had a hard time believing it. Adam denies being the guy, and we both know Bram isn’t ready for a relationship. Which,” I say with a silly head tilt as I look at him, “just leaves you.”
For a moment that drags on for a seeming eternity, Henry simply stares back at me. Then his eyes avert mine, and he lets out an uncomfortable laugh. “Me and Kennedy Russo? I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I didn’t actually believe Lydia’s theory. Though, it’s strange, isn’t it? That Kennedy snuck onto your property.”